Throughout its twelve years of existence, the goal of this educational project led by the Catholic Church has been to serve as a tool for the transformation of local realities. Its priorities are to work toward the defense of life, the promotion of human rights, the peaceful solution to conflicts, and the creation of a political culture that acknowledges diversity, fosters inclusion, and promotes development alternatives in the regions and/or territories where it is implemented.

The strategies implemented throughout the process are:

Organization
The groups or teams involved are the key to promoting and strengthening the structures that will serve as foundations for processes that guarantee the overcoming of exclusion, inequality, and injustice that impede the generation of horizons for development in the communities. 

Training
Training workshops provide the opportunity for individuals to suspend their daily activities for a moment and reflect on the way they feel, think, understand, relate to, and act in their everyday lives, on the basis of an analysis of reality and the study of different theories and authors. The training experience provides a space in which, through the interaction with others, individuals manage to transform their thought, attitudes, and behaviors in such a way as to contribute to the development of new ways of life. The School strives to promote a transformation in which individuals go from a practical consciousness that often leads them to act in response to repressive or coercive measures, to acting on the basis of ethical conviction.    

Sustainability
Sustainability is the greatest challenge faced by the individuals and groups involved in this pedagogical experience. The idea is to create strategies and deploy creativity in order to preserve what they have learned, improve it, and renew it in their daily interactions, according to what their communities and reality require.

Assistance
There are many ways in which individuals may participate  in the processes deployed by the School for Peace and Citizen Coexistence, whether permanently, intermittently, occasionally, physically or spiritually.  This strategy seeks to build capacities and attitudes in the individuals so that they may become the actors of intervention in their own spaces.

Participants in this process include the pastoral groups of the Catholic Church, as well as other religious denominations and community leaders and organizations: mothers who are heads of families, community action boards, individuals displaced by violence, youth groups, the formal education sand health sectors, and the local government, among others.

Ever since 2002, this project became a diploma course at the Instituto Pensar of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. The diploma is awarded to the participants in the School in recognition of the skilled work they carry out aimed at improving living conditions in the towns where the project is implemented.

Contact:

María del Carmen Muñoz
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Esta dirección electrónica esta protegida contra spambots. Es necesario activar Javascript para visualizarla
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Tweet